


but I'm singing like a bird about it now

by woodswit



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Abortion, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, Previous rape, Protective Jon, Rage-kitten Jon, Ramsay Bolton is His Own Warning, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:15:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22066132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodswit/pseuds/woodswit
Summary: Ten years ago, Jon drove his best friend's little sister in his shitty pickup, past all the Christmas lights, to a clinic. He held her hand for hours, held her as she cried into his neck. He did not tell her that he loved her, but maybe he should have. He thought, at the time, that she already knew.Or: It's Christmastime, and for the first time in almost ten years, Jon and Sansa will be in the same room together.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 313
Kudos: 894
Collections: adventures of the mini cooper, my completed fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains discussions of rape and abortion. Neither are described "on-screen" in the story; only their impact on Sansa, and on Jon.

**Sansa, 2009**

There is nothing more isolating than watching your life fall apart and being unable to tell anyone about it. 

Sansa is sitting in one of the upstairs bathrooms at home, in Winterfell. She is alone. She can hear the boisterous happiness and togetherness on the floor below: it is Christmas break, and everyone is preparing for the New Years' Eve Stark party in two nights' time. She and Arya are home from university, Robb is home from his new, important-sounding job in London, and Robb's best friends, Jon and Theon, are staying for the break. 

Normally, this is Sansa's favorite time of year. Even before the first pumpkin is carved, she is anticipating the winter holidays. She loves the decorations, the songs; she loves picking out the perfect gifts for everyone and wrapping each one with its own hand-picked paper and its own decorations. She loves wearing sequined dresses, and making silly resolutions, and kissing a cute boy at midnight. She even loves the things that usually frustrate her: Theon's harmless flirting; Arya's shenanigans; and brooding, detached Jon. 

"What's the matter with you, Sansa?" her mother keeps asking her this year. She feels impatient with Arya's teasing, yet thick-tongued and clumsy at the dinner table. The Christmas songs in the shops nauseate her, and for the first time since she was fourteen, she has no boyfriend coming for New Year's. Everything feels like a persistent and unbearable noise, and every time her mum asks her what's the matter with her, she feels Jon's cool, incisive gaze graze her cheek as she looks away and says, _nothing._ Every question feels like an attack, every observation about her changed demeanor fills her with rage. _Just leave me alone,_ she seethes inwardly, and then, later, alone in her room, she longs for someone, anyone. 

Sansa is staring at the stick in her hand. It is not real. It is not possible. It must be something she has somehow made up. She's good at that, at making things up; _what's the matter with you, Sansa?_ She looks around the bathroom, the bathroom she has had a hundred stomach viruses in, the bathroom she was potty-trained in, and somehow none of those memories seem real at all, so that's not a helpful comparison. The pale blue tiles seem eerie, and the floral curtains look like a joke. And the stick in her hand—that is the greatest joke of all. The thing is, she's known it. She's known for weeks, yet has not believed it. After all, she makes up stories in her head all the time. Happy stories, sad stories; dramas about unrequited love and cowboys and knights; thrillers with terrorists and stylish heroines. She's even made up stories about people she knows, though they're the most private and most unconscious of all: she has had a thousand affairs with Jon Snow in her head, and even a few with Theon, just for a lark. Maybe this is just another drama that she's made up—

—Yet she knows it's not. Her stories always have a happy ending, and this one cannot.

"Sansa?" she hears Arya call up the stairs, but she does not reply, even though she's so desperate to that she feels her mouth moving in a silent call. Part of her wants to be discovered, to have this terrible burden forcibly taken from her, but of course, that cannot happen. No one can know, because if they find out about this, they'll ask questions about other things—things that Sansa cannot bear to answer for, things that Sansa has been praying were just a horrible stray thought from her overactive imagination. She has spent weeks telling herself that _that_ night did not happen, but the little stick in her hand insists otherwise. 

Arya calls again, then gives up. She's playing video games with the boys, a thing Sansa has no interest in, so she must assume Sansa has retreated to her room to read. Sansa thinks of the glittering miniskirt hanging in her closet, a confection of silvery and bronze paillettes that she bought for the New Year's Eve party even before _that_ night had ever been planned, and of the tissue-wrapped clothes that she got for Christmas that she will take with her back to university. She thinks of her calendar, already full of plans for social events, rugby games, parties, dances, and day-trips to London. The little stick in her hand, with two pink lines, makes all of that seem as silly as playing with dolls. It is impossible to imagine that bright future, as spangled as the miniskirt she meant to wear on New Year's Eve, because that bright future no longer exists.

There's another burst of laughter from below, and she feels so alone, so much more alone than she's ever felt—more alone, even, than that night—that a lump forms in her throat. The stick is shaking, or are her hands shaking? She wants Mum, she wants to be held, she wants tonight and that bitter night so many weeks ago to be erased. 

Winterfell is an old house, and the stairs creak. She hears heavy footsteps, undeniably male footsteps. It's Robb, or Theon, or perhaps even Jon. To have her brother or Theon find her like this would be disastrous, but somehow Jon would be catastrophic. For all of the love stories she has lived out in her head, he is aloof and cool towards her, and his distance smacks of disdain. She cannot bear more heartache right now, more evidence that the life she is in now is nothing like what she wants. Shaking hands stuffing the little stick into her pocket; a limp call ("I'll be right out!" she trills); the toilet flushing. She washes her shaking hands and avoids the girl in the mirror; she hates that girl. 

And then she's opening the door and, of course, it's Jon, and in the dark she smacks into him— _sorry, sorry,_ they both mutter; hard chest against her arm and the scent of his skin—and the stick falls out of her pocket. 

A shaft of light from the bathroom illuminates the carpet, and casts the positive pregnancy test in high relief. Mario Kart is blaring downstairs, jarring in the tragedy of this moment. Arya is bellowing a foul-mouthed taunt at Bran, and somewhere else in the house, Catelyn hears and yells an admonishment. Robb and Theon are laughing. It seems impossible that so normal a world exists so very near to this one.

Jon is all in black, all lean hard lines that she always tries not to notice, and there's stubble along his jaw (he is growing a beard; she wished, a week ago, when he arrived in his pickup, that she did not notice it) and even in the dark she can see the slight flush he gets, high on his cheeks, when he's had even one beer. It's the same color as his mouth. He draws in a sharp breath as he looks up from the ground and slowly raises his gaze to hers. The light from the bathroom edges him in gold, illuminates his planes. 

Her mouth is dry, and the world is ending. Her eyes are burning. 

"D-don't tell—" she begins, but her voice breaks. "Please."

She has known Jon for as long as she can remember. They should be close—he should be like an older brother to her—but they're not. He doesn't even seem to like her, and she has always made it clear that she does not like him, because then no one will know that she notices things like his mouth or his shoulders, or how his hard-won, rare smiles feel like a promise. 

"Sansa," he says in a low voice, and she's not sure he's actually ever called her by her name like that. He says her name quick and low, like a secret, and his brows knit together as though she has struck him. Hurt and disbelief. She has never seen his eyes look so electric.

"Please, just don't say anything—" 

"Jon? Sansa?" Arya is coming up the stairs, throwing Sansa into a blind panic, but in a blur Jon reaches down and snatches up the pregnancy test and pockets it, straightening just as Arya alights the top stair. Sansa realizes, belatedly, that there are tears streaming down her cheeks. Her sister is staring at them, stricken. "...Oh my god. What happened?" 

"We banged into each other when she was coming out," Jon dismisses. His voice sounds so normal, so casual. She forgets that he is quick, that he can be deceptive when he needs to be. "It was my fault—she's fine."

Arya is still staring at Sansa, so to make good on Jon's lie, Sansa forces out a wet laugh and presses a hand to her solar plexus. 

"H-he just knocked the wind out of me, is all," she says thickly. "You know I cry at the drop of a hat; it's nothing." Arya's mouth twists, but at last she shrugs. 

"Well, we wanna start the next round," she says to Jon. "So hurry the hell up, or I won't have any real competition. I've beaten Theon like eighteen times, and as fun as it is..." 

"I'll be right down," Jon promises, but Arya is already bounding down the stairs again. Jon turns back to her once Arya's out of sight, and ushers Sansa further from the stairs. His hand is warm on her arm, even through her sweater, and all the hairs raise along her neck as her back grazes the wall beside her bedroom door. "Does anyone else know?" 

He hands her back the test, and she shakes her head. He nods and looks away as though thinking. When he speaks again, he treads cautiously, his words halting. "Will you tell the—"

"—No, I'm not telling him. I'm not telling anyone." 

She doesn't mean for it to come out so sharply, and she watches a muscle leap in Jon's jaw as he clenches his teeth. He is stopping himself from speaking, studying her carefully, and though it's dark, it's not dark enough for her to completely hide. Jon's grey eyes have always seen everything, and now he is reading her; he is dismantling her and pulling her secrets from her like wires. She wishes she could look away from his grey eyes, as though that would save her. When he lets out a slow breath, she feels it fan across her collarbone. 

He knows. He must know. He can't read her mind, he doesn't know the details, or the specifics, but he knows. Her throat is raw and her chest is tight, and as she feels her eyes burn, she sees his Adam's apple move as he swallows. 

It's what he says next that will change everything between them—past, present, future—forever. "What do you need?" 

**Jon, 2019**

He's in Marks and Spencer, carrying the wine that Catelyn asked him to pick up, when his back pocket buzzes. 

"Hello?" He balances the bottles in his other arm and tries to pin his mobile between his ear and his shoulder. The shop is packed, and he is feeling hassled. He's got a long drive up to Winterfell, and he can already see that the lines are record-breaking. 

"Hey. Oh my god, is that a Marillion cover of _Last Christmas?_ " Arya is pacing, he's sure of it. She sounds distracted, and hyper. _Something's wrong._

"No idea. ...Everything alright?" Jon hedges, shifting the wine bottles and pausing in the aisle. He hears them knock against each other with a glassy rattle. 

"Oh, yeah. Everything is great," Arya says quickly, loudly. "Definitely great." 

And then Arya, who never cries, lets out a high, choked sound. "Um, it's just weird," she starts talking again, rapidly, desperately trying to outrun the urge to cry with her words, "but I called Sansa like I always do, and—and she's coming this year." 

The wine bottles shatter on the floor, and Jon sees heads turn in his direction. "What _was_ that?"

"Nothing," Jon promises. "Sorry. I'm in the shop. What were you saying?"

Arya lets out a shuddering breath and then clears her throat.

"God, I don't know why I'm acting all weepy about this!" she laughs loudly. "I'm being completely ridiculous. It's just, you know, she hasn't come to Christmas in—"

"—Ten years," Jon finishes. He sees his reflection in a glass case. He's standing in a pool of very expensive Italian wine, looking shellshocked. An employee is coming over, looking furiously exasperated and holding a mop. Jon thinks he can hear the buzzing of the fluorescent lights, or maybe that's his own blood pounding in his head. "Hold on, I'll call you back, Arya." 

He rings off, and pulls himself from his shock. "Sorry, let me help," he mutters to the employee, and crouches down over the wine and shattered glass. He cuts a finger on broken glass, and the wine makes the cut sting. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Sansa, 2009**

Sanaa’s eggshell blue suitcase is already sitting on the floor of Jon’s pickup when she gets in. The leather seats of the pickup are cracked and frayed, but it’s immaculately clean, and it smells like the coffee that Mum brewed and put into thermoses for them. Jon is in the driver’s seat already when Sansa slips in. Outside the truck, Mum and Dad are standing in the drive, with Mum curled against the cold in a long, elegant cardigan and Dad in a lightweight shirt, comfortable as always in the cold. The January sunlight is biting, the wind a reprimand; it's early, and no one else is up yet.

“Are you certain you’ve got to go back so early?” Mum pokes her head into the open window, and a long tendril of auburn hair tickles Sansa’s cheek. She reaches in and her soft hand curls in a strong grip around Sansa’s. “Term hasn’t even started yet. I know you're anxious about your schoolwork, but you could work on it here, too.” 

She doesn’t work too hard to encourage Jon to stay, of course. If it were only Jon leaving early—and when Mum is around, he always does—then she probably wouldn’t even be awake to see him off. But when Sansa told her parents that she was going back to St. Andrew’s early last night, there was an extraordinary amount of fuss, and this morning Sansa came downstairs to an overwhelming breakfast of kippers, eggs, biscuits, juice, and fresh coffee. She only felt worse when her stomach heaved helplessly at the smell of the kippers, and did her best to take a full plate for Mum’s sake—but when no one was looking (save for Jon, of course) she had tipped her plate in the rubbish. For a moment, studying Mum's elegant features and brows knit with concern, she imagines spilling her guts. _I have morning sickness, that's why I didn't want it,_ she imagines saying. She superimposes Mum's look of worry in this moment to the Mum in her wild imagination. There's an icy pain ripping through her chest, leaving her breathless, and for a horrible moment she watches her mother realize that Sansa has secrets. 

“I have a lot to do to prepare for term,” Sansa explains before it can go any further, squeezing Mum’s hand and feeling her wedding ring dig into her palm. “I’m just going to be worrying about it if I stay, and I'll just want to spend the time with you and everyone.” 

Both of her parents are too shrewd to slip much past them successfully, so she avoids their eyes as she kisses them goodbye through the window, with promises to ring them and promises to take the soonest possible weekend to come home. But even those words feel limp; the possibility of time beyond what she will do today is as foreign and silly as she finds science fiction. Mum won't stop bringing up random things: _did you remember to pack your vitamins, did you remember to pack that dress I bought you from Miss Selfridge, have you made your next dental appointment?_

“We’d better get going,” Jon says. “If it gets too late, we’ll just hit more traffic.”

He takes this fall for her: Catelyn shoots him a resentful look, and after one last kiss to Sansa’s forehead, steps back from the truck. And soon, in a blur, Winterfell is disappearing in the trees in the rear view mirror, and they are alone. 

“Thanks,” she says after a long time. “I owe you... I mean, more than that. You know what I mean.”

She risks a look at Jon. He is staring ahead, and doesn’t glance at her, but she watches him give a little shake of his head. 

"I couldn't begin to respond to that," he admits. "There's no ...balance... here. This isn't a _favor._ "

They drive past rolling countryside, and Sansa feels sick, and she can't tell if it's anxiety—she struggles with it—or morning sickness, or grief. She has never known grief, not yet. She knows what it looks like on television, and she knows the cliche descriptions, but she doesn't know it. Her anxiety has sometimes bordered on something like depression, but she has always keenly sensed her own fortune—and never more so than she does now. 

Yet—could she not have waded into grief? This seems like the most painful way to begin. And there's a gnawing, secret part of her that feels wrong, or tainted. She has always been staunchly pro-choice; she did not even need to think of it. And yet... She is afraid to follow this thought, and she finds herself crying, except it's not really crying, so much as leaking saltwater. She does not have a name for this feeling. "Shit," she hears Jon say softly. 

On the side of the highway, surrounded by cattle and empty sky, Jon pulls over. They each stare ahead, as Sansa lets out shuddering sobs. 

"S-sorry—"

"—This is so fucked up," Jon says. She glances at him, and he is rubbing his forehead, still not looking at her. 

"You don't—"

"—Why," he begins furiously, nearly drowned out by a passing truck, "are you the one suffering here? Why are you the one paying for this?" 

"I got drunk," she admits. Now she's the one looking away, and she feels Jon looking at her. "Really drunk. I didn't mean to. I'd been dieting, and I—I didn't realize, I guess. I miscalculated." 

He doesn't reply, so she looks at him. He is working his jaw as he stares at her. Tightly controlled, so much hidden. She realizes, now, that she does not know Jon at all. All of the things she's imagined—in one of her imaginings, they run off to Paris for a weekend and she makes him laugh—they're all based on things she made up. All these years of knowing each other, yet she doesn't know him. She doesn't even know how he really feels about this—is he doing it because of Robb? Is he doing it because he feels sorry for her? Is he pro-choice, or pro-life? Is he left-wing, or right? She doesn't know any of it. She only has bare details, little hints of what lies beneath the surface. He looks angry—incensed, really—but she doesn't actually know what he's angry about. 

Jon leans over and rummages through the glove box, and produces tissues. "Thanks." 

He settles back, hands shoved in the pockets of his black coat, as she tries to discreetly wipe her eyes and nose, but her shoulders are still shaking; there's still a magnet in her heart that pulls everything, achingly, toward it. She is a black hole of matter, all of it pulled to one fine point, and everything about her is about to gather and then disappear. "I don't know if I can do it," she admits. "But I can't _not_ do it, either." 

"We can cancel. You have time," Jon says.

They went over it all before, a few nights earlier, in secret—she had pretended to need help fixing the wheel of her suitcase. Jon is the only one who is good at fixing stuff, and no one thought much of it—she hopes—when he volunteered. He had found out the cost for her, through his roommate who had one before, and had even found out the place to go. She had had to stifle the twinge of jealousy— _well, Ygritte says,_ he'd said so many times—knowing it was ridiculous to be jealous. She had stopped herself from asking Arya about Ygritte, and had lain awake in bed, pondering her own silliness. On the eve of all of this sadness and darkness, she had been thinking of romance... as usual. 

"But then what?" she laughs sadly. "I'd ruin everything I've worked for. I'd ruin everything my parents wanted for me." 

And then the words are tumbling out. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what I _want_ to do. I just wish someone would tell me the right thing to do, because—" her throat catches. "You always hear, 'it's your choice,' or something, but I don't _know_ what my choice is." The words come out rapid-fire, helpless and messy. "Once I do this, I can't go back. But if I don't do it, then I get to have nothing that I wanted." She looks at Jon. His eyes look bright, and he blinks and looks away, so she clears her throat. 

Their eyes meet again. She watches his brows knit together quickly, watches his head tilt. She did not know that Jon Snow could look like that—like he's been gutted by someone he loves. "Do you think it's wrong of me?" 

He doesn't hesitate. 

"No."

His voice is soft, low, sad. They listen to the traffic, stare at the dead grass and empty sky. 

"We'll be late," she says now. "We should go." 

Jon doesn't start the truck right away. His hand is on the key, and he's staring ahead again. 

"Whatever you decide," he begins, "I'll help you." 

To ask why is on the tip of her tongue, but she's crying again, silent and smothering, and she's afraid if she talks she'll begin to sob. She has always known that Jon was loyal to the bitter end. It must be his love for Robb. But when she says nothing more, he starts the truck again, and they keep driving. Jon doesn't turn on the radio, and Sansa doesn't make conversation; she leans her head against the window, clutching the hot thermos but not drinking it, thinking of her mother's soft hands. She has always been close with Mum, and now, she knows it will all fall apart. It's more collateral damage. She feels herself crying harder, and then they're pulling up to a sandstone building. Jon has to parallel park the truck, and Sansa considers apologizing for it, but then can't bring herself to speak. 

The truck is put into park and then they're sitting in silence again. "What do you need?" Jon asks again. He's looking at his fingers, picking at his nails. "We can turn around now. Or we can go in." 

She wipes the tears from her face and swallows her grief. 

"I need to do this," she says through her teeth. When she looks at Jon, he only nods. 

"Alright." 

When they get out of the truck and are walking along the sidewalk, Sansa finds herself gripping his hand. Jon grips back, and does not let go. 

**Sansa, 2019**

_I don't want a lot for Christmas_

_There is just one thing I need_

_I don't care about th—_

Sansa pauses the Spotify playlist, and looks up at Winterfell. She hasn't been home in nearly ten years. The windows are glowing golden, and she spots Mum's head in the window. She hastily ducks out of view. She has been watching the drive for Sansa's car. She has been agonizing over it, Sansa knows. This all is her fault. 

She could still turn back. She could drive back to Edinburgh, back to her flat with her cats. There are no Christmas decorations in her flat and there never have been. There's no Christmas music, either. It's safe. She could drive back, and sit in the silence, and eat a normal supper, and keep trudging along. 

Headlights turn the air in her car to fairy dust, briefly, then go out. It's a pickup truck. Her heart is pounding. Of course—she should have known. It's too late to hide; she didn't turn off her car. He will know she is here, in her car. She hears the metallic sound of the door slamming, hears the rustle of bags. Mum probably put Jon to work, picking up the wine. 

_Just do it now._

She cannot let her mother and father see her see Jon again for the first time. It will give away everything. So she bites her lip and forces herself out of her Mini, her legs stiff from the drive. 

And there he is. Soft grey eyes, gentle as a dove, meet her eyes over the roof of her Mini. Once upon a time, and so many times since, she lived ten thousand different lives with this man. He's holding a Marks bag and a duffle bag, and he is as lovely as he was the last day she saw him. He is staring at her like _that,_ like he's been gutted by someone he loves, brows drawn together and lips parted. 

"Jon." 

He shifts his bags, turns to face her fully. 

"Sansa." 


	3. Chapter 3

**Jon, 2019**

Jon has never allowed himself to google Sansa, to look at her Facebook, or her rarely-used Twitter. He's seen her headshot in the jacket of her first book, once—sepia tones, disbelieving smile, tiny pearls dotting her perfect ears, garden-lit eyes—but it was a moment of weakness. Since then he's heard from Arya and Robb and the others about her interviews (she rarely does them, and apparently is perfectly poised and in control, never an errant word or stray smile), but he won't watch them. He bought her books, all of them, but he never reads them. They sit on his shelf, untouched, because to do anything else feels like an intrusion. 

And god knows she's had enough of those. 

And now here she is, the woman in sepia-tones, snow dotting her hair like pearls, as precious to him as that fleeting time when snowdrops crop up through the last snow and you can sense the world breathing as it changes from death to life. 

"Jon—"

"Sansa!"

He's knocked aside by Catelyn, who hastens across the slate path to throw her arms around her daughter. "You made it, thank goodness. How was the drive? Oh, look, and it's begun to snow. I was worried it would start when you were still driving. Is that your only bag?" 

Catelyn turns and then seems to see Jon at last. He feels as though he's just breached the surface, coming up for air, choking saltwater, lungs raw and eyes stinging, so he gives them a short wave and turns away, his heart in his throat. 

After all, he has had practice in hiding his feelings for Sansa. He knows just where to tuck all of his love so that no one sees it. 

"See you inside," he calls over his shoulder. "These bags are heavy." 

**Sansa, 2009**

What she did not expect was to feel bored. They sit in an empty waiting room, in the corner of a line of uncomfortable chairs. She let go of Jon's hand once they entered, but now she wishes she hadn't. Their elbows brush occasionally as they each try to settle. She can feel her new mobile vibrate with texts, but she does not look at them. They feel like an astral call, and the idea of stringing together sentences that are about anything other than this moment seems ludicrous. Even in her boredom, there is nothing that she can think of doing to occupy herself. There are magazines on the low tables beside their chairs. They're old and crumpled, and Sansa tries to picture thousands of women and girls before her, blindly paging through these silly, silly magazines as they make a decision that will forever change them. 

Crap, she's crying again, simply leaking tears. The linoleum before her blurs, and she hears Jon get up to grab a tissue for her. Then he's pressing it into her hand, and instead of taking the tissue, she grips his hand, and to his credit, he doesn't pull away. He settles back in the chair, and lets her grip his hand painfully tight, the unused tissue between them. He stares ahead, working his jaw again. 

"Snow?" the nurse calls. They have used Jon's name, not hers—Dad is well-known in the area; the name Stark means something. It was Jon's idea. Jon looks back at her before they stand, and she drops his hand and throws away the tissue. 

"That's me," she says. Jon hangs back awkwardly, and she realizes why. The nurse is waiting for them, and suddenly her hands are clammy. They speak at once. 

"Do you—"

"Could you—" 

"Yeah. Of course." And then he's gripping her hand again, and he does not complain when she squeezes his hand as hard as she can. 

* * *

She doesn't process any of what the nurses or the doctor tell her. There are instructions, follow-ups, things she has to do and appointments she has to make, and she hears her own voice agree to these things but she does not know what they are. She doesn't remember the recovery room, though she knows she was in it, she doesn't remember changing into her clothes though now, suddenly, she is standing in the watery January sunlight with Jon, wearing her clothes. Sansa Stark's clothes. She looks down at the kelly-green peacoat, the old jeans that are so worn that they're soft, the ballet flats. They don't belong to her—do they? Can they?

And then somehow they're in his truck, the sounds of traffic shut out. Jon doesn't start the truck yet. There's a twisting, feral pain deep in her, and a hollowness that makes the pain feel like it's too small—yet it's the biggest pain she's ever felt, in a way. _I never wanted to be here_ , she thinks, and she feels her shoulders shaking. _Nothing is ever going to be completely alright ever again_ , she realizes, and she tries to breathe but she can't. She feels herself diverging from the Sansa Stark in her head, a first splitting, like a ghost being ripped from a paper doll. Somehow the ugly death feels more tangible than the painted paper cutout she had made in her head of who she thought she would be, pen and ink and as detailed yet unreal as Tenniel's Alice. 

She's clutching her belly, low, shallow breaths that never quite make it, and then she's crying in earnest again. After weeks of not crying, she suddenly cannot stop. She is covering her face. She tries to draw in a steadying breath, tries to tell Jon she has the directions to St. Andrews, that she wrote them down in her notebook—she could not risk printing them—but the words get caught in her teeth and instead she cries, ugly choking sobs, and she and Jon meet in the middle.

She does not know how it happens, but suddenly his warm arm is around her, and she is pressing her face into his neck—his skin is warm, and the scent of his skin is somehow familiar to her, as comforting as the scent of her own pillow, and his stubble grazes her forehead as he tilts his head back. His chin is on top of her head, one strong hand on her back, and she is curled up against him like a puzzle piece. She can smell his laundry detergent in his black jumper, can smell a hint of his deodorant, can feel his pulse against her skin. She is soaking the wool of his jumper with her tears and she knows she ought to feel ashamed, knows she will later, but for now she cannot bring herself to stop. His pulse is the part that makes her cry harder—it's rapid, like he's worried, like he's sad, like he feels her pain, and after the weeks of _what's the matter with you, Sansa?_ from everyone she loves, this open vein of empathy is almost overwhelming. 

When she pulls away at last, raw and weak, she sees that over twenty minutes have passed. She cannot look at him. She has never been so humiliated. She needs to get out of this car; she needs to never see Jon Snow again.

"Um, I can direct you to—I wrote down the directions—"

"—We're not going to St. Andrews, Sansa," Jon says. His voice is not loud or harsh, but there is no room for argument. "You're going to stay with me for a few days, then I'll drive you to school." He starts the truck. 

She had been so eager to get away from her dorm room, it had felt like a rash all over her, yet there hadn't been any escape at home. She doesn't want to go back to her dorm, where she spent the end of term lying on her bed like a prisoner, listening to the upheaval of holiday romances, end-of-term parties, nights out to celebrate the end of exams, happening all around her, happening without her. Another thing that was stolen from her. She does not want to go back. "I know it's a little weird," he is saying as he pulls out of the parking space, eyes on the road, "but Ygritte will be there—"

"Are you saying you think I don't trust you?" she asks in disbelief. They're driving again. 

"I—" he falters. "If you didn't," he starts again, carefully, "it would be understandable. For a lot of reasons." 

"You sound so calm about it." For some reason she feels angry with him. He's been so collected, so gentle, so pragmatic, since this whole thing started. 

"I don't feel calm about it," he says. They're pulling onto the highway again, and the day has become grey and muted. "I'm pretty fucking angry about it, actually."

She does not know this man. But everything hurts, everything, and the fight seeps out of her, and she doesn't have the will to contemplate this unknowable man. Because he is a man—that much becomes clear when they at last reach Jon's home. It's one of a row of yellow brick townhomes, and the front lot is tidy but bare, and there's an orange Mini parked out front. There are a few plants in the front window. He has a life here, an adult life in which he pays bills and—perhaps—goes on dates (or is he dating Ygritte? Is she his girlfriend? No one has ever said so, one way or the other) and cooks himself meals, real meals and not just instant ramen. "Ygritte's home," he realizes, looking at the orange Mini. 

Inside, the flat is comfortable but tidy, shabby but clean. There's a sagging sofa facing an older television, which perches on top of a low bookcase spilling over with paperbacks. She knew he likes to read—she usually gives him books for Christmas, and even from the entrance she spots a few of the titles she has given him on the bookcase, the pages frayed like he's actually read them. 

They stand in the living room, avoiding each other's eyes. Upstairs, she can hear someone padding around on light feet, and all she wants is to lie down and not speak to anyone. The painkillers are wearing off. 

"You can sleep in my bed," Jon says suddenly. He's looking at the floor. "You probably want to lie down." 

Neither acknowledges the strangeness of this situation. Jon moves as pragmatically, as calmly, as though they have done this a thousand times. He leads her upstairs, past a bathroom. The shower is running, and a low, husky, feminine voice is singing, but they turn the corner and it's gone. 

Jon's room is tiny. The bedding is navy, and in place of an endtable, he has a stack of books with a lamp that must have belonged to someone else first on top of it. He has a few framed pictures on top of a set of drawers: the Starks, one of him and Arya on a camping trip, one of him and Robb from their school days. And there's another picture, of a woman who looks like Arya, hauntingly lovely (because Arya is becoming lovelier with every passing year, though she denies it) and smiling in the picture like she knows she will be a memory. Sansa has to tear her gaze from it. _Lyanna_. 

He offers her tea, and she declines, and then she's alone in his room. He has brought her suitcase up with him, and she changes into pajamas with pale hands and robotic movements.

For a long time, she lies there in his bed—the sheets are clean but she can still barely detect a hint of his skin and it feels like love—and watches the light cross the room and then fade. She can hear Ygritte downstairs, talking to Jon, but she can't hear what they're saying. Her belly writhes with pain, like there's a hook lodged in her, and she thinks of his hand on her back. Nothing will ever be completely alright ever again. And the worst part is the secret relief she feels, and she hates herself for it. The grief is almost easier than the relief. It's more pure, it's more palatable. The relief makes her feel like a liar. All her life, she's assumed she will be a mother. Would a mother feel like this, even for a child she did not want?

She hears the front door close, and then the house is quiet. 

She drifts in and out of sleep that is fevered and lost, until she hears the door click open, and she sits up, blinking in the darkness, heart pounding. It's Jon, she remembers, seeing his silhouette in the doorway. Lean lines and hair pulled back. Hands that feel like love. 

"Hey," he whispers. "You need to take your painkillers." 

"Right." 

She turns his lamp on as he comes in with a glass of water and a pill, and takes them from him. He's already turning to go. 

"You need anything else?" he's asking as he moves toward the door, and the word comes out before she can think. 

"Wait." 

He pauses, one hand on the doorframe, and looks back at her. She watches him bite his lip. For a moment they linger on the edge of something, a new tautness in the air. She cannot read him, cannot read him to save her life. But the room feels electric. This is a new taboo, and she cannot put into words why it is—but she knows that they are breaking down some kind of wall, they are shining a light on something that had been flourishing in the darkness. Maybe it's her imagination. Maybe it's all of the thousands of lives she's lived with him in her head—can he see them in her eyes? 

"Yeah?" 

"I can't sleep," she admits. She is not ready to go back to that shadow-world with the monster that is taking shape, not yet, not alone. "Can we watch TV or something?" 

He looks away, exhales as though relieved, and she wonders what he thought she might ask. 

"Yeah, of course." 

Downstairs, the light at the desk is on. Jon has been working, and she feels a wave of guilt that is dulled by the painkillers. 

"Oh, wait—I don't want to pull you from work," she says as he goes to switch off his computer. 

"I was done anyway," he promises her. He gets blankets for her, and then they're sitting on the couch. Some mindless reality show flickers on; Jon asks her what she wants to watch, and she shrugs. Patterns of light—not people, not things—false across the screen. In the corner of her eye, she can see their colors play out on Jon's skin, his face and neck, his bare forearms. He's staring at the screen but not watching either. In the haze of painkillers it occurs to her that this day has been traumatic for him, too. He was in that room with her the whole time; he saw her in a hospital gown and held her hand, helped her to the recovery room; he sat there with nothing else to do while she curled up and shook. 

She has taken too much, she knows it. Guilt surges. The monster's outline is as clear as pen and ink. "Where's Ygritte?" she forces out, still staring at the screen, and she senses Jon glance at her. 

"She's at work. She bartends," Jon explains. "Are you, um, hungry?" 

"No. Thank you, though." She pulls the blanket up to her chin. There is a searing in her chest, a thrumming beneath her ribs. He keeps giving. She cannot begin to think of how she can repay him for this. Why does he keep giving? Why does he say so little about how he feels? Why is he so lovely, so loving? "And thanks for everything else," she says after a moment. Jon is fidgeting with the remote control with tight, furious movements. 

"Yeah," he says at last in a low, tight voice. "No problem."

There is an awful sarcasm to his voice that makes tears spring to her eyes, and she swallows the lump in her throat. "Sorry," he adds after a moment. He lets out a breath, and the silence stretches on. She sees none of the patterns; _I'm pretty fucking angry about it, actually_. She thinks, as she begins to drift off, that she does not know this man, and she is not sure that anyone does. 

**Jon, 2009**

Ygritte will be home soon, and she's never quiet. Jon edges along the hallway, Sansa asleep in his arms, her head in the crook of his neck. The stairs were the hardest bit, and it's only thanks to the painkillers and the exhaustion that she's still asleep. He makes it to his room by a miracle, but she's beginning to stir. He backs into his room, and crouches down to set her down—

"—Wha," she mumbles into his skin before sinking into the mattress. Auburn hair spills across his pillow, and he is quick to pull his hands out from under her. 

"Shh, go back to sleep," he breathes, already pulling away, but her eyes flutter open. She is awake, and he watches her take in how he is crouching over her, a knee on the mattress, making it dip. He watches her come to, and realize that the world is just as it was before she fell asleep: the horrible thing happened, the ugliness still exists. 

"Will you stay?" 

It is the smallest he has ever heard her voice. This girl of fairies and princesses, of glittering dresses and silvery laughter. There is a hook lodged in him, a hook that pulls out the _yes_ that he breathes. 

**Sansa, 2009**

Her heart is pounding as she turns onto her side and feels the bed dip as Jon gets in behind her. What has she done? And yet—as his chest grazes her back, as he breathes, _sorry_ , as his scent envelopes her though he does not touch her—something smooths over her raw and broken soul. 

**Sansa, 2019**

Mum is touching her shoulder as they watch Jon walk away. He is so lovely, so loving. And as unknowable as he always was. 

"Come inside," Mum is saying now. "Jeyne's already here, and she's brought her new boyfriend."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an intense chapter.

**Sansa, 2009**

She wakes up to warmth. The dry mouth from the painkillers, the rolling pain, the slight nausea—none of these matter as she realizes that it is not quite morning yet and Jon Snow's arm is around her. 

For years after today she will write about this moment, preserving it behind glass and logging its every feature: the darkness of the bedroom, the sounds of traffic outside, the navy blue bedsheets, the pictures on top of his dresser, the sight of his jean-clad leg curled against her own when she looks down... All of this in the hopes of preserving the things that catch in her throat: the weight of his arm over hers, the scent of his skin, the balm over all of her wounds. In the movies and cliched books they make you think that after what has happened to her, she'll remain pale as a lily and distant, fragile, unable to be touched by any man—but now she feels that all she wants is touch, touch that proves that it's not a weapon; she feels messy and ground up as raw meat, as blistered and ruinous and hot as an angry burn, and the simple weight of Jon's arm over hers is a salve. For years after today she will pretend that she does not want touch, she will stuff herself into that mold—but she will always crave this. 

And it's the quiet time just before morning that she loves so well, when the day still feels lurching on the precipice of all kinds of wonderful possibilities; when outside she knows everything will be blanketed in sparkling frost, and the moon will be disappearing, a mother's promise over the horizon, _today will be lovely_. A lump is forming in her throat—she had thought this would not be a thing she got to feel anymore, but just like that, Jon brings it back to her. _I love him_ , she mouths against the pillow, because she can't say it out loud. Perhaps she does not know his details but she knows his colors and music because she has felt them a thousand different ways in her dreams, and here he is now, holding her in her very worst moment—and she just loves him. This person who would blindly ask her, _what do you need_ , never questioning whether what she needs is something he wants to give; this person who would know her pain from across a room; this person who would risk Catelyn's wrath just to save her a moment's suffering—she loves him, she loves him, she _loves_ him. That she is feeling this joy in a time of such brutal shame and guilt only sharpens his music and deepen his colors to her. This moment will change her forever: to know that beauty can exist alongside agony; to learn that amid the ugliest and most secret moments, she can still find her way back to who she is. For years after this moment she will use this feeling again and again, living it in every story she writes, to pass through those times of agony with grace. 

The pain is just enough to not let her forget what happened yesterday. She presses her palm to her abdomen and tries to focus on the weight of his arm, on the loveliness of the quiet, but the pain and grief will not be ignored. She moves her legs, in desperation. She draws in deep breaths. She does not want to cry; she does not want to ruin this. She hears Jon stirring, feels him let out a soft sigh that makes her hair flutter at the back of her neck. _Don't pull away_ , she thinks sadly, though she knows he will. 

"Sansa?" Jon's voice is rough from sleep. She feels him lift his head. "Do you need pain meds?" 

She swallows her tears. 

"No," she says. "I'm just—just sad," she adds in a rush. 

"Oh." He is pulling his arm away. "Do you want to be alone...?"

"No." She cannot help it. "Please." 

"Alright." 

He lays back down behind her and places his hand on her arm so tentatively that it makes gooseflesh raise along her skin. He is so gentle, so careful, even as he tries to comfort her. "Sorry—I didn't realize I was...crowding you," he adds now. "I move around a lot in my sleep." 

He's worried that she was uncomfortable—because _of course_ he is. 

"You weren't," she says quickly, her voice thick. "It was nice, actually," she adds, then wonders if she has gone too far—but he says nothing about it, and does not move closer again. She hears him draw in a breath. 

"I just need to say this," he begins, "and I don't want to make you...relive...anything, or anything. But people get drunk all the time. I got drunk last summer, really drunk, because I hadn't eaten anything too, and I wasn't paying attention to the alcohol content in the beer I was drinking. I just wasn't thinking about it. You know what happened? My friends, who were also a bit drunk, made me go home, and I fell asleep on my sofa and woke up with a headache. That's it." 

She doesn't know what to say. She is torn between the weight of what he is saying and the longing to ask him more, to learn more about the details of his life which is so opaque to her. Who was he with? Where did he go? Was he a happy drunk, or a sad drunk? What did he think about when he woke up in the small hours of the night with a pounding headache and a churning gut? Who did he long for in the sloppy, singing height of his inebriation? She saw him drunk for the first time, she suddenly remembers, at a big Stark party when they had all been kids and he had been sneaking alcohol with Theon and Robb. He had been surly and emotional, and she had laughed with Jeyne and Beth at him. 

But even as she remembers this, there's something darker, something squirming, demanding to also be remembered. She tries to focus on the memory of an adolescent Jon—so sweet, so serious, so soft—but black tentacles of rot creep over it and she can't push them down. 

"But you're—"

"—There's no _buts_ , Sansa. There's no anything. If someone had stolen from me, or broken into my house, or—or _anything_ , it would be just as much of a crime." His hold on her arm tightens, perhaps not consciously. "Whoever he is, he committed a—"

"—I don't think he did." 

This is the secret. The silence is ringing. "I saw him before I got drunk. I flirted with him. I went to the party specifically because he was going. I made him think something was going to happen." 

"How?" 

It's a question that gets too much into the weeds, and even now her face burns with shame. 

"I—I don't know. I just sort of touched his arm, and told him he was handsome, and just...sort of made it clear I fancied him." She remembers biting her lip and watching his gaze flick down to her mouth, his eyes alight with the knowledge that she is doing it to entice him; innocently tugging on her dress, or swinging her long hair over her shoulder. She had never done anything like that before, she had never felt her own power in being pretty, but so quickly that power seemed silly and had turned to ash in her mouth. 

"So you flirted with him," he says flatly. Her gut twists. So he disdains her too, he probably thinks— "—Sansa, do you know how many drunk girls—" He doesn't finish his sentence, but she can feel his fury filling the room, heavy and hard to breathe in. She doesn't know what to make of it. "Bars are full of girls who are too drunk and trying to be seductive. Most guys don't just assume that means—"

"—I think they do though," she interrupts. She thinks of the party, of the sly grins and knowing glances between all those university boys as they see the girls' flushed skin, hear their too-loud voices. It's an opportunity, to get it without having to try, to slip past all the normal barriers and have easy fun. 

"Not any of the ones I know," Jon continues furiously. "It would not even be an option. They would not consider it. Even if a drunk girl begged them—"

"—I did not beg him—" she blurts out, feeling sick. Jon stops talking, and she can tell he is holding his breath. "I flirted with him, and I thought we were going somewhere to talk, maybe to kiss..."

She remembers his hand, cool in her own clammy one; she remembers feeling baffled at getting what she wanted: the attention of someone handsome, someone cool, someone a little bit bad, which has always seemed so far out of her reach. Guys find her pretty but too much work, she knows it. They find her obsession with her grades and her gnawing anxiety about extracurriculars to be tedious; they find her propensity for daydreaming silly and frustrating. They like her long hair and freckles, they like the unexpected curves beneath her clothes—but all that goes along with it, all that those features cost, never seem worth it. She remembers thinking that perhaps this is the start of a great romance, perhaps she has found the person who will not find those things to be too high a price—and she even remembers thinking that perhaps she will stop daydreaming about Jon. 

"He committed a crime," is all Jon says now. "It's a crime. And that it's just you here dealing with it is further evil." 

"It doesn't matter, though," she says quietly. The morning has lost its hushed beauty, it is as blaring as daylight now, with Jon's rage. 

"But it does—"

"—But it doesn't. There's no evidence. Going after him would be humiliating; revealing this would be devastating. I just want to forget it." 

For a long time neither speaks. Jon's thumb runs against her arm and she wishes he would simply pull her closer and hold her tightly like he did when they were asleep, but she knows that he won't. 

When he finally does speak again, his voice is raw. 

"Tell me his name." 

"I can't." 

"Do you know it?"

"Yes. But I can't tell you." 

"Why not," he seethes, lifting his head up, and she looks back at him because she cannot help it. "Tell me who he is—"

"—No." Something in her voice makes him falter, and she watches him let out a breath. His grip on her arm had become heavier, and he looks down and loosens his hand. When he meets her eyes again, he looks so sad. 

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, humiliated and ashamed. "I didn't mean to scare you—I don't know what—"

"You didn't," she promises, and then it happens.

She twists to look at him, gutted by the look on his face, reaching for him instinctively, and her shoulder brushes his chest and somehow his lips nearly brush against hers. 

"Shit, sorry," he breathes, and he is pulling away before she has even had time to process the feel of that whisper of a kiss. She is not even sure that their lips really touched. Her forehead still tingles where his forehead brushed hers. "I'm so—I don't know how that—"

"—It was me—" 

"—No, it was me, I just lost my head—" He sits up, his back to her. "I'm so sorry, Sansa. I wasn't thinking." 

"Neither was I," she promises, sitting up. The words are cluttered behind her teeth: _I love you_ , and, _I have wanted you to kiss me for years,_ and, _please don't go_. But something stops her. She can't say it. 

Jon doesn't look back at her. She sees him looking at his digital clock. It is almost seven. He swears softly. 

"I have to go to work," he says, and she watches him rub the back of his neck. "Um, Ygritte will be home all day." He's getting to his feet. She sees a swath of his lower back where his jumper has ridden up, and in a flash it disappears. He's pacing, going to his closet and grabbing clothes. "Shit," he mutters. "I can't believe I just—"

He pauses, holding clothes, at the foot of the bed. This will be the last time, for ten years, that his eyes meet hers. 

"Jon, it was me, I told you," she insists, feeling a rising panic. "I reached for you—I wanted you to—" 

She stops short of saying it, and Jon is staring at her—in shock? In disgust? In horror? In shame? She does not know the look on his face: brows slightly raised, slightly drawn together, lips parted. She cannot go any further without knowing what that look means. _Gutted_ , she thinks again. He looks gutted. 

"I—I should go," he finally says quietly. "I've done enough damage," he adds disgustedly. "I'll have my mobile so you can text me if you need anything. Ygritte will be around and there's food in the kitchen, and don't forget to take your painkillers." 

He's already out the door, and she hears the shower turn on. Daylight is creeping into the room. She cannot stay here. 

**Sansa, 2019**

"Well, if it isn't the famous author!" Margaery's voice is too loud; she is trying to break the blistering silence that follows when Catelyn leads Sansa inside. Margaery and Robb are holding glasses of white wine, and Margaery makes a fuss of running to Sansa and giving her a rose-infused embrace, all clinking jewelry and a rush of silk and soft hair. Arya is waiting by the kitchen island, chopping a cucumber with alarming precision. 

"Hey, Sans." Her voice is too loud and too casual. The hurt is all too evident. 

Robb follows Margaery and envelops Sansa in a tight hug. She's seen him often enough in the times she's been visiting in London, for meetings and book tours, and her brother is as accepting as always. 

"You and Snow got here at just the same time," Robb says as he releases her. Jon is in the kitchen with Arya, unloading bottles of wine, his back to her. Sansa cannot help but look at him, and then must look away. Gutted, she thinks again, and she does not know if she is thinking it about him or herself. 

"Okay, weird confession time—" Margaery begins, in that same, wild, overly silly tone that rings so utterly false. Mum helps Sansa out of her coat and sticks her suitcase at the foot of the stairs. 

"Oh, go on," Mum teases, rolling her eyes. "Margaery has been entertaining us with her strange confessions," she says out of the corner of her mouth to Sansa as she makes her way to the kitchen. Sansa can just picture it: the tension of the kitchen, of everyone waiting for her to show up for the first time in ten years; Margaery wildly trying to soothe it with every tool in her arsenal, trying to distract everyone. Sansa is so keenly aware of the pain she has caused that it takes her breath away. 

"Yes?" she says instead, as Margaery links arms with her and Robb hands her a glass of wine from one of the bottles Jon has brought. His back is still to her.

"I've read every single one of your books," she begins now gamely, as though telling her a raunchy secret—though her books are nothing more than fairytales retold, speculatively and with an edge; there's nothing worthy of secrecy in them—yet they are packed with her secrets. "And you know who I almost always find myself mentally casting for your heroes?" 

"Oh, god, not this," Robb says with a roll of his eyes. "I can't believe you, Marg. I told you not to say anything; it's too weird." 

"Jon!" she squeals, squeezing Sansa's arm, and at that moment Jon looks back and smacks his head on one of the open cabinets and swears. "Oh, crap—sorry, Jon. No, I picture Jon. They're always handsome and dark-haired, brooding and mysterious—"

"Snow is the least mysterious person I know," Robb counters with a too-loud laugh. Sansa forces a laugh too. 

"I never thought of it," she says loudly, as Jon looks back at her, hand pressed to his head. Their gazes lock for only an instant, and she remembers the ghost of his lips against hers, and then he's looking away again. "I can see it," she adds a bit lamely. But Margaery's distraction has not done enough; an awkward silence falls again. 

"Well," Mum blusters, "your father and the others are in the living room. Why don't we go and say hello?" Mum pretends to be mild and polite, but she is frog-marching Sansa out of the kitchen, desperately trying to keep the mood buoyant, desperately trying to smooth over the agony of this moment. White wine in tow, Sansa allows her mother to lead her through the archway and through the dining room, where the table is already set. "Sansa's here," she calls as they reach the living room, which is crowded with the rest of the family and their significant others, and friends of their family—including Jeyne, who was once Sansa's best friend. 

There is a man sitting beside Jeyne on the little mint-green loveseat, the one she loves. He's strong and broad, and has filled out since his university days. His hair is combed more neatly; he looks more polished. And yet she would know his eyes—too pale, too pallid—and his lips—just a bit too full—anywhere. 

"Sansa!" Jeyne faux-squeals, as though they did not have a blistering falling-out. "This is--"

"—Ramsay," Sansa says quietly, and she watches those too-full lips curve into a grin. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Jon, 2009**

He explodes out of his house and into the damp morning. Traffic is crawling by; it appears like any other January morning out here, and he feels like he has passed through some portal from that strange land, both dreamscape and nightmare, back into the normal world, with wet sidewalks and honking cars and emails and deadlines and coffee. 

"Hey." 

Ygritte pokes her head out the front door behind him. She's wearing an oversized hoodie and holding a mug of coffee. "You on the run from the law?" she teases. 

"I-I have to go," Jon stammers. "I forgot I had to do something at work before a meeting. Can you keep an eye on Sansa?" 

Ygritte doesn't speak right away; she studies him with her eyes narrowed. 

"What did you do?" she asks shrewdly. Jon opens his mouth, then closes it. _Did_ he do something? He does not know. He can still feel Sansa's fingertips in his hair as she pulls him closer; he can still feel his forehead grazing hers. Did she reach for him, or did he reach for her? Did she pull him, or was he already—

"I don't know," he admits. His mouth is dry, and his heart is fluttering, loose and faulty. Ygritte nods. 

"Alright. Go on, then. She'll be fine," Ygritte promises at last. They have been friends for so long—and at various points, more than friends—that she knows him, knows when to push him because she's pushed him enough times to know when she will get burned by his hidden fire. She knows him nearly as well as Robb does, at this point, and she can read him like a book. It is a relief now, and also a relief that for once she isn't pressing him harder. Perhaps she can see the agony on his face. 

So Jon runs, mentally. In reality he walks like a man possessed to the bus stop, then boards the bus, and stares out at the rain like a zombie, swaying with the bus and not noticing as other passengers knock into him. He cannot sort through what happened with Sansa—did he violate her? Is he really the sort of person who would do that?—so he does not try. There is no answer; he will not get a real answer from Sansa, either. She wants to exonerate her rapist, so of course she will exonerate him, too. She will promise him it was her fault, she will insist she reached for him first, but Jon will always know the truth: he put himself into this position, and whether or not he reached for her is hardly the point. He got into bed with her, he curled up against her, he said _yes_. He should have insisted _no_ , he should have gotten Ygritte, or Val, or any other woman he knows, to be with Sansa.

He has done nothing but make mistakes, and of course, each step of the way, he told himself he was doing the right thing. He told himself when he first found her holding that positive pregnancy test that he was only reaching out because there was, practically speaking, no one else. He told himself when he followed her into that cramped, fluorescent-lit office, that he was only going in to hold her hand because no one else could. And he told himself, when she begged him to stay in bed with her, that he was only doing it because there was no one else.

But he always knew exactly what he was doing, didn't he? 

_It's not like that_ , he tells himself all day. _I did it because I love her_. 

Where is the line? Is there even a line, between ill intent and kindness, that can exonerate him? If you do a bad thing for love, is it any better than doing a bad thing for any other reason? He wanted to kiss Sansa because he loves her, not because he simply wanted a kiss. He did everything, took every single step, for a love that has haunted him for years, but is that really any different, at the end of the day, than the man who led her to a quiet place at a party and raped her? 

Years from now he will confess these private pains to his best friend, Sam, on a night when he has mistakenly gotten drunk. It will be in a bar he always goes to, and there will be a drunk girl, hair so blonde it almost looks silver, and she will be pressing him to take her home—she will be more forward than any other woman, even Ygritte, has ever been with Jon; she will be almost violently forward—and he will turn her away. And as the bar closes, Jon will sit there in the corner with Sam, and the words will come tumbling out.

And Sam will tell him that if there's love, real love, there's no power there. Sam will tell him that to reach out your hand with your palm open is different than reaching out to strike, and we know the difference innately even the two actions do look similar. And Jon will wish, in that moment, that he had reached out to Sam here, now, as he rides the bus to work and is haunted by what he has done. He will learn that to tie himself into hidden knots is the worst thing he can do. But he's so young now, even if he doesn't feel it, even if he jokes with his friends that every birthday feels more like he's celebrating his future death day than another year of gifted life. He is too young to know any of it; he is a child, really, and so young that he does not even know he's a child. 

So he says nothing, to anyone, and eats himself alive with guilt and shame and regret. And when he gets a text from Ygritte that Sansa has slipped out, all he can do is type back 'OK' and grieve for them, for her, for everything that she has suffered and everything he has done to make her suffer even more. He can only let the years pass. 

**Jon, 2019**

His head is still throbbing from where he smacked it on the cabinet. He hears Arya chopping behind him, the movements precise and methodical. 

"You know," Arya begins suddenly, and the chopping pauses. Jon doesn't look back from his task of arranging the bottles, needlessly. "Marg is right. Did you ever notice it?"

"Notice what?" Jon has nothing left to occupy his hands, so he automatically goes to the sink and starts washing dishes. 

"Sansa's heroes. In her books. They're always basically you," Arya continues. 

"I haven't read her books," Jon admits. "I hear they're good, though."

"You own all of them," Arya blurts, and Jon looks over his shoulder. She is staring at him and he does not like the look on her face. "I've seen them. You have literally all of them on your shelf. You pre-order them and get them as soon as you can. How have you not read them?"

Arya has always been sharp. "Oh my god," she says, shivering as though she's eaten something spicy, shaking her head. "Oh my _god_ ," she says again. "Did something _happen_ between you two? Is that why you're so weird around each other?" 

Jon has had plenty of practice keeping certain secrets, secrets that would only cause harm, hidden. And there's a part of him now that cries out, _wait. You're doing it again._ He thinks of Sam, he thinks of open palms. Why is he doing it again? Why is he keeping to himself the things that eat him alive? _I'm protecting Sansa,_ he thinks. Surely if one secret unravels, the rest will follow. To unravel this first secret would be selfish, he tells himself. He rolls his eyes and turns back to the dishes. 

"Of course I buy her books, Arya," he scoffs. "But they're not really my thing, truthfully. Nothing happened between us. And besides, isn't the dark-haired, brooding hero a bit of a cliche?"

"They don't read like cliches in her books," Arya snaps. Since the two sisters have grown up, Arya has become protective of, and defensive about, Sansa. "Her books are really good. Why are you being such a dick about it?"

"I'm not," Jon laughs in disbelief. "And you haven't seen me and Sansa together. Not in years. How can you say things are weird between us if you haven't seen us in the same room together in a decade?"

"No, but whenever I mention her, you're weird about her, and she's weird about you," Arya is saying. and Jon can tell his mind will catch on _and she's weird about you_ , and he knows he will be wondering what Arya has said to Sansa about him, and when she said it, and how, specifically, Sansa was weird. "And the last Christmas she was here, you guys left together, right?" 

"Yeah, I drove her back to school," Jon says irritably. His fingers feel numb and he pauses in his scrubbing of a knife. He does not trust himself to handle sharp objects when his hands feel so numb. He feels like he's being driven toward an edge that he does not want to see.

"Did something happen?" 

Arya's voice is shallow, flighty, nervous. Jon doesn't turn around. He just scoffs. 

"No," he says, even though he knows that it's better to reach out, to open himself up. Even as he says it, as he tells the lie, he's conscious of it. He knows he's young now even if he doesn't feel like it; he knows that in so many ways he is missing the wisdom that he needs to move through this with grace. He knows he is harming himself, harming Arya. "We've talked about this, Arya. A thousand times. I drove her back to school. She didn't say anything to me out of the ordinary. We barely talked—"

"—I just can't get over the fact that you were the last person she talked to before things got...weird," Arya continues. She's not chopping anymore. "She basically ran off with you, and then everything changed." 

Now he cannot avoid her. Arya is staring at his back, he can feel it, and he has to look over his shoulder at her. "I never saw it before," she says slowly. "But it seems so obvious now. You're hiding something, you've _been_ hiding something. Oh my _god_. You two ran off together, and then Sansa didn't speak to anyone for years."

"Arya, it's not—"

"What are you two doing in here?"

Robb pokes his head into the kitchen. "Everyone's out in the living room."

Arya turns away from Jon, and even Robb can see that his little sister is horrified. "What's going on?" Robb asks archly now, coming into the kitchen fully. 

"Oh, nothing—just that Jon is _clearly_ lying about something," Arya says in a strangled voice. "And has _been_ lying—"

"Stop it." Robb's voice is hard. He comes around the island, standing before Jon and Arya. His eyes are steely; Jon forgets that Robb is not always soft and gentle and smiling. Arya is seething. 

"Did you not see how weird he and Sansa were around each other when Sansa came in?" she hisses. "Jon was the last person who saw Sansa before—"

"—Stop." Robb's voice is so harsh that even Arya shuts up, and he looks between them. "Mum and Dad want this Christmas to be happy. Whatever it is you think you're doing, just drop it." 

"But—"

"Just stop." 

Robb knows something. Jon is not sure what Robb knows, but the way Robb won't look at him, the way Robb will not allow Arya to speak—he knows _something_. "Just put down the knives and grab some wine and come into the living room," Robb continues now, turning away from them. "Make Mum and Dad happy, alright?" He sounds so exasperated. Jon hears Arya disgustedly pour herself so much wine that she finishes off one of the bottles; she has filled the wine glass almost to the brim. He hears her stalk off, and then for a moment he is alone in the kitchen. 

Does Robb know how Jon has always felt about his little sister? Maybe. That very well could be the thing Robb believes he is protecting. Or is it that Robb knows something else? That option, darker, is worse. It makes Jon sick. Does that mean Robb has known that something terrible, something criminal, happened to Sansa and he is helping to keep it in the shadows? 

Jon stares at his thin reflection in the glass of the window above the sink. Either way it is like finding the start of the rot in an apple that he thought was perfect; like finding a shadow of mould. If he knows that Jon loves Sansa, and has never said anything... that is humiliating. But, so much worse, what if... 

**Sansa, 2009**

"Heading out?"

A woman's voice, slightly rough, stops Sansa at Jon's front door. A cab is waiting outside in front of the house. Sansa looks back. Ygritte is curled on the couch—low enough that Sansa missed her earlier—and is sitting up now. There is an uncomfortable recognition between them. Sansa knows she is being selfish, and weak, and now someone else does, too. She swallows. 

"Y-yeah." There's no point in spewing the lines that she has prepared; somehow she feels on display for Ygritte. Ygritte offers her a half-smile. 

"You'll be alright," she says. "It feels like shit now, but you'll be fine." 

"Thanks." 

They linger in silence, and something falls in Ygritte's face. 

"I will say that Jon deserves to be treated better than this. But—make your mistakes." She flops back onto the couch. 

"I—I have to go," Sansa stammers. "I'm leaving for his sake—"

"—There is nothing you could have done, or he could have done, that would make that true," Ygritte says from behind her book. "But you're young. Make your mistakes. We all do what we want. Advice is pointless. We all think the worst pain is being a victim, but really the worst pain is being the perpetrator. Just go; the cabs charge for the wait, too."

Sansa lingers. But Ygritte says nothing else.

So Sansa runs. 

**Sansa, 2019**

"Oh, you know each other?" Jeyne blusters, looking from her boyfriend to her former best friend. Sansa stares at Ramsay, feels the tension grow taut in the room. No one, she realizes, can miss that there is pain here. 

"Yes, we met at a party. The same party you two met at, I think," Sansa says coolly to her former best friend, and she watches Jeyne pale. _Make your mistakes_ , she thinks sadly, studying her former friend. _Advice is pointless._

"You look good, Sansa," Ramsay says, rising to his feet, so Jeyne does, too. Being attached to this cruel man has not been good for her. "Being famous suits you." 

All the things she couldn't say, all the things she kept to herself over the years. Her stories are filled with her secrets which are buried so deeply that no one ever realizes all of the hurt and grief that lurks in their pages, shadows of mist passing between branches. All eyes are on her. She has been silent for years, she has been alone for years. 

So she turns back to Ramsay. The uncomfortable silence has stretched on, and everyone is waiting for her to speak. _And not being in jail suits you,_ she thinks of Ramsay, but the words catch again in her teeth. _No pain like being the perpetrator_ , she thinks. 

"Thank you," she says instead of all the things she wants to say, and she knows that this is not what Ygritte meant.

She watches the fear leave Jeyne's face, but what's left is hard and unloving. Her silence has kept the peace but this is not a peace that is tolerable to be in. "You look good too," she continues, because everyone is watching, because she has caused enough hurt and to let out this secret now—here, in front of everyone—will only cause more pain. "I'm happy for you, Jeyne." 

And she turns toward the stairs just as Jon and Arya are coming into the living room, crowding the space further. Her neck is hot, her face is hot. She needs to get out. And her gaze locks with Jon's across the room, and she sees his lips part. He is even lovelier than he's always been in her head. He's grown into his long features, and though he is still slender and lean, the coltishness of his body is gone. She did not allow herself to really look at him before, but now she sinks into the indulgence, just for a moment. She takes in all of the little details that she couldn't earlier: his hair has grown and he's pulled it back at the nape of his neck; he is wearing a watch and a little, worn bracelet woven out of string that she thinks a child must have made for him; his jumper looks high-quality which means he's doing well for himself; there's a little white scar over his brow that he must have gotten years ago, which means they've been apart for long enough for him to get a scar and have it fade. 

"Hey, Sansa," he blurts out, breaking the silence, and everyone looks at him in surprise. "I think you left your lights on." 

He's saving her again, and she takes the escape. Running again, she thinks, as she blusters something about always doing that, and she pushes past Jon and Arya. She's running again, because that's what she does: she keeps quiet and runs. To make good on Jon's lie, she grabs her keys from her purse and explodes into the night air. Snowflakes sting her cheeks and her collarbone as she walks, blindly, to her car.

**Jon, 2019**

Jon turns to follow Sansa out, but Jeyne lets out an incredulous laugh behind him and everyone pauses. When he turns, she is looking at him as though she's holding a blade to his neck, and Jon thinks of how Sansa was looking at this man and his stomach turns. _This is that man,_ he realizes, just as he also realizes, _Jeyne knows._

"Sneaking off again?" Jeyne teases too loudly, never taking her gaze from Jon. 

"I'm not sure what you mean," Jon says calmly, but he can feel Ned Stark, who has been in so many ways a father to him, looking at him with a new edge. Catelyn's eyes are widening. Arya is staring. And Robb is looking down, and Jon thinks, _he knows, too._ But what Robb knows is something different than what Jeyne knows, and Jon feels overwhelmed by all the secrets he is holding onto. Jeyne scoffs and elbows Ramsay. 

"I told you about this," she says to her boyfriend in that mock-amused tone. She is trying to distract from something rotten, something horrible, that Sansa seemed on the precipice of shedding light upon, and he will be her victim, her collateral. She looks back at Jon. There's only a moment's hesitation. "Sansa's always fancied Jon. They even ran off together, one Christmas. Actually," Jeyne pauses, eyes narrowed as though in thought, "I think it was the last Christmas Sansa showed up to one of these things. She and Jon left early and they told everyone he was just driving her back to school early, but they spent, like, a _week_ together."

"You _what?_ " Catelyn blurts, at the same time that Arya says, "I knew it." 

And now he is the villain, but to exonerate himself would be to tell secrets that do not belong to him. He must take the fall for Sansa, though by the way that Ned and Catelyn are looking at him, ice and fire, and the way Arya seems horrified, and the sudden, yawning gap between him and Robb, he knows that this is by necessity the end of all that he loves. Rickon and Bran are looking at him like he has done something horrible, and Jon thinks of nineteen year old Sansa, lovely and innocent and foolish, and how he must have looked to them—older, already an adult by most standards, whisking off the young girl in his truck. Ned's love for him only goes so far. Because though he and Sansa are only a few years apart, he knows that they would look at him and see a villain, a grown man far too eager to prey upon a young girl's innocence and admiration. And Catelyn, of course, has been waiting for this. From the time he was old enough to see Sansa as a _girl_ and Sansa was old enough to be pretty she has been waiting to catch him looking, catch him longing. And even though what Jeyne says is a lie, it uncovers a true that has not really been as well-hidden as he had hoped.

There is nothing he can do. He must take the fall. He meets Jeyne's eyes. She has done this harm to save herself, and he wants her to know that he knows. And then he looks at Ramsay, and sees how Ramsay is squeezing Jeyne's arm. He wants him to know that he knows, too, and this isn't over. He'll take this fall, it is inevitable, but this is _not_ the end. 

**Sansa, 2019**

She half-expects Jon to follow her into the night, to grip her arms and ask, _what do you need?_ And she'll tearfully tell him, _it's him_. It is what she would write in one of her stories, the dark and brooding hero always swooping in to save the girl that always has something—perhaps red hair, perhaps blue eyes, perhaps her flaws and perhaps her freckles—in common with her. But she is alone, and in many ways she knows it is what she deserves. She has run, over and over again, and doesn't it make sense that at a certain point, no one will run after her anymore? 

And somehow, as she paces, shivering, snowflakes on her cheeks soft as eyelashes, the story that she has always found so comforting turns sour on her tongue. Because it's not just about her anymore, is it? Jeyne is in there, with that evil man, and maybe she does know what he is—but what if she doesn't? 

She knows what Ygritte meant, that to treat others poorly puts a mark on your soul that is, in some ways, so much harder to heal from than what anyone else can do to you. She knows because she has spent years writing and rewriting her story with Jon and somehow she has never, in any world, in any iteration, been able to fix what she's done to him. Maybe it's because she's been waiting for him to save her when really she needs to save him. She's been writing someone else as the hero of her own story. 

Sansa looks back at Winterfell. It's time to stop running. It's time to stop hiding. It's time to stop writing herself as the princess that must be saved. She has to help Jeyne—at least, she has to try. She'll pull her aside, and she'll tell her, really tell her all of it this time. And maybe it will work, and maybe it won't, but at least she will have tried. And she will sit across from her rapist at dinner because to run is to harm her family all over again. She steels herself, and goes back inside. 

The house is silent. She hears Mum shout something in outrage just as she hears Arya's fury, too. And when she goes into the living room, everyone is staring at Jon, and he is alone. 

"Sansa," Mum begins, "is this true?" 

Jon looks back at her over his shoulder. He looks pale, and his grey eyes are icy. "Did you and Jon run off together? Did he make you go with him?" 

He says nothing to defend himself. Behind him, she can see Jeyne looking breathless, exhilarated, and terrified, and Ramsay's gaze is cool. She is not sure how it happened but she knows this is her fault, and she knows this is Jeyne doing harm to try and save herself—and Jon is her victim, and he is saving her all over again by not defending himself. Their eyes lock. She has always loved his eyes. She has written thousands of words on his eyes—they are the silver of the clouds over the haunted woods, they are the color of the bewitched mirror, they are the color of all that she loves.

To exonerate him, truly exonerate him, she will need to tell them everything. Their lies have only covered so much, because the truth—wispy, and smoky—is undeniable, and though they do not know what it is, they know that it is slowly burning away, and then know they can smell its smoke. 

They're all looking at her, and her secrets are behind her teeth, and it is time to spill them. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sad to end this story. I'm including an epilogue after this because I can't leave well enough alone.

**Sansa, 2009**

She goes back to St Andrews. She stops seeing friends. She lies awake at night, writing stories in her head about a girl who kills with a touch, and about a prince who brings life with a touch. She thinks, every day, about the child that is gone. 

**Sansa, 2010**

She writes stories in her head about a princess whose tongue has been cut out, and a knight who can hear her unspoken words. She thinks most days about the child that is gone. She deletes voicemails from her parents. 

One night, at the library, she carves into the wood of the table: _I think about death and silence all the time and I’m afraid I will never be alright._

The next day, she is ashamed of herself for her drama. But when she goes back to that table, someone has carved beneath her words: _you’re already alright even when it feels the worst_.

She is angry that this mystery person is so optimistic while Ramsay Bolton stills struts around campus, while she lies awake at night and grieves for a child that is gone and for a romance that will never happen. She is angry at herself for getting so swept up in her own misery that she would behave like that. But there is something that she catches on: _you're already alright._ She lies awake at night and closes her eyes and thinks of gentle hands and silver eyes, and clings to every contour of the memory.

**Sansa, 2013**

She works different joyless, middling jobs and writes stories on her mobile while hiding in the bathroom over lunch breaks. She deletes more voicemails. She hides in cafes and sometimes Facebook-stalks Jon. He has a girlfriend but there are no pictures of them. She thinks often about the child that is gone. 

She writes a story about a girl who wakes up in the body of an evil queen and one rogue knight who knows who she really is, and she doesn’t delete it. Instead, she leaves the cursor blinking. She lets the words curl on her tongue, catches glimpses of these characters in the corner of her eye as she goes about life in Edinburgh. She becomes hungry for beauty, and finds herself wandering galleries and gardens, hunting for something in crackled portraits and tucked between petals of peonies. 

Sitting in the National Portrait Gallery one Saturday midmorning, she has a sudden realization: she _is_ alright, even if nothing is alright. She is drowning and smothered by grief and she is alone and lonely—and somehow, at the same time, she is alright. She thinks of silver in his eyes and the warm weight of his hand on her arm, of the softest brush of a kiss across her forehead. Nothing makes her feel as close to what the poets and painters were all trying to capture than that memory does, and it makes all of it—the silly fantasies, the stories she has deleted, the family she has lost—feel like there's a point to it all.

It makes it feel like there is something she is fighting for, and she just doesn't know it yet. 

**Sansa, 2019**

Everyone is looking at her, waiting for her to speak at last. She is about to shatter everything, about to toss aside this fragile thing that she has worked so hard to reclaim, but a strange calm settles over her. She's lost everything before; she knows she will be alright. She knows that this is worth it, that Jon is worth it, that Jeyne is worth it.

"Jon didn't _make_ me go anywhere, that year," she corrects. They are all staring at her, and she waits just one more moment, in this impossibly normal world where they believe she merely ran off and perhaps slept with Jon.

They cannot possibly be ready for what she is about to say; there is no way to prepare them for the violent truth. "It's true that we left together, and it's true that I stayed at his flat. I asked him to take me to an abortion clinic, and stayed with him afterward." 

She realizes now that she has never admitted it to anyone out loud. She has spoken of the rape, obliquely and, once, specifically, to a therapist, but she has never actually spoken of the abortion. Easy to be the victim, not so easy to be the perpetrator—and in the eyes of so many, she is the perpetrator here, for her choice. She has been paralyzed at the thought of how others will judge her for her choice, more paralyzed than how they will view the rape, and its circumstances. 

The room is silent. The world has shattered but it made no sound. 

Only Margaery lets out the softest, saddest _oh, no_. Arya's eyes are wide, and wet, the way they get when she's angry. Bran's brows are knit together in sadness, and Rickon is looking around the room, trying to understand how to feel. Robb looks like he has been slapped. Her brother's blue eyes look bright as she watches him breathe, _what?_ Mum's jaw trembles. And beside her, Dad looks so sad that Sansa must look away. She does not look at Jon; she cannot. 

When she looks at Jeyne, her lips are pressed together in a grimace of agony, and Sansa knows she will try to lash out one more time. 

And then she meets Ramsay's eyes. He lifts his chin, slightly. His pale eyes narrow. 

He is daring her.

Should she spill this last secret?

Who will it help, if she does—and who will it harm if she doesn't?

For years she has tried to picture what the child that is gone might have looked like, an exercise in horror and grief as much as an exercise in romanticism: her desperation to imagine something tender, something important, something lovely, that could have come from the agony she has endured. She cannot bear to think _father_ of this demon. And now he's in front of her, and she does not know how she ever thought him handsome, how she ever wanted _bad_ when she has known, for most of her life, that the knight, the prince, the hero, is what she has always loved. Was Ramsay supposed to be an antidote, that night, to everything she feared about herself and everything she knew about herself? Was she hoping that he might quash the silly, tiresome, daydreaming little girl who longed for her brother's best friend? 

And what is it within Jeyne that she is hoping he will kill? What has happened to her dear friend, that she clearly knows his cruelty yet still stays with him, still defends him and defends their relationship, destroys her bonds with the people who love her? 

"So you're telling us that Jon knocked you up." Jeyne's voice is caustic, smirking, but Sansa knows her friend, knows she is scared and in pain. She does not mean to harm anyone else, she only means to save herself, as Sansa did all those years ago when she fled Jon's home. She does not want Sansa to spill any more secrets. But to stay with an evil man—that is no salvation, no matter what Jeyne thinks. 

"No," Sansa says, "he didn't." Her mind is made up. No pain like being the perpetrator; no one is writing fairytales about the doctor that met her under fluorescent lights and yet that doctor saves. "Ramsay did, when he raped me at that party." 

There is a sharp intake of breath. 

She can feel Ramsay's snarl, can feel everything around her shift, can feel the softest touch at her back, but she does not look away from Jeyne. "You deserve better than this, Jeyne—"

"—This is ridiculous," Ramsay barks with a laugh, but every Stark in the room is staring at him with cold fury. He looks around. "This isn't one of your weird fairytales. I'm sorry, but this is real life," he continues. Beside him, Jeyne's mouth twists in agony. "You were so drunk you couldn't even stand. Pawing at me, flipping your hair—you didn't call it rape until I never asked for your number or asked to see you again," he says scathingly. No one is speaking. Sansa feels bile rising—but rather than defend Ramsay, Jeyne is staring at him in horror.

"You wanted to come so badly, and I didn't want to know why, but I _did_ know, deep down," she sobs through her teeth, reeling, gasping, "I knew, I knew it, you just wanted to see her—"

"I was curious," Ramsay admits, and he looks a little panicked now, there's an energy to him as he glances around the room at the silent Starks; he knows he is in danger as he looks at Sansa again, "but let's not pretend you were some victim, Sansa. You were a pathetic, drunken slut."

And then, as though someone has snapped their fingers, the Starks come out of their trance of horror and grief.

"I'm gonna _destroy_ him," Arya seethes.

A chair is pushed over; Sansa feels she cannot breathe, she sees now the red marks on Jeyne's arm where Ramsay was gripping her; Robb looks as feral as a wolf as he pushes past his wife, his neck and cheeks flushing with rage; Mum is shaking, her mouth twisting with rage in a way that Sansa has never seen; but when she looks for Jon, he is pushing past her just as Ramsay tries to duck around them; he lunges for Ramsay, and smacks him against the wall; in their scuffle, a marble-topped table is turned over and the glass lamp on it shatters; Ramsay takes a swipe at Jon, and Arya pins him against the wall again and knees him in the groin—

"—Get out of this house," Dad says quietly. Everything stops. Jon is gripping Ramsay by the front of his shirt and he lets go and touches where Ramsay hit him; Margaery is holding a crying Jeyne upright; Robb is behind Jon, shoulders rising and falling; Arya looks dangerously calm as she stares, disgustedly, at Ramsay, her small hand raised in a fist. 

Ramsay takes one last look at Sansa. She feels lightheaded, and only now does she realize she is shaking. A thousand things clutter in her mouth to say, but she does not need to say any of them—not anymore. They are not secrets.

"Leave," she says. And Ramsay shudders like a snake and pushes past Jon, Robb, and Arya. The door slams, a violent clap. They hear the shriek of tyres, and then all is silent. 

No one knows what to do—except Sansa. She knows, now, exactly what to do. She turns back to Jeyne and envelops her in the tightest hug that she can, just as she hears Mum let out a sob and run to her, and then she is being crushed in an embrace so tight that she feels she might drown in love and grief. 

**Jon, 2019**

It is nearly four in the morning. Jon cannot sleep. There is a ringing in the Stark house, and when he creeps downstairs, the air has the hushed, feathery feel of aftermath. The walls still seem to echo with the shouts, the cries. The shattered lamp and table has been cleaned up, but bits of glass still glint in the moonlight streaming in, and Jon gets the dustbin. When he is done and walking through the living room to the kitchen to put it back, he realizes there is a silhouette outside, on the back terrace.

Sansa. 

She is sitting outside, alone, huddled in an overcoat, on the edge of the terrace. The fresh snow is like starlight around her, setting her aglow. Of course she would be awake; for how could she sleep, after that? 

He stands there, staring, his heart in his throat. He does not feel he has the right to approach her, not now. Not after what she has sacrificed, in part to save him. 

_I'm so sorry_ , Arya had said into his shirt earlier, when Ramsay had left, as she had hugged him so fiercely he could hardly breathe. _I was hurt. I never really thought it was your fault._

Over Arya's head, Jon had met Robb's eyes and realized that Robb has always known about his feelings for Sansa, has perhaps even suspected this as the cause of Sansa's distance, and has tried to protect both of them. And in the trauma of the evening, that secret once again got kicked under the rug by all its keepers. He knows how to hide his love, but perhaps he is not as stealthy as he believes. 

He doesn't feel he has the right to approach her, after what she's done for him. He does not have the right to tell her how he feels—but now in the quiet Jon does not think he can keep it any longer; he does not think he should. This secret has been eating him alive for years, for _years._ And he thinks back to that day on the bus as he tortured himself for it, and all the days before it and all the days after it, up until that night in the bar with Sam.

It is a night for courage, it is a night for open palms. It is time to let go of this last, final secret. 

**Sansa, 2019**

She is bundled up in thermals and Dad's heaviest, most unstylish coat, and scarves and mittens and Robb's boots, and the world around her is as untouched and pale as a lily, and she cannot believe that she is alright. 

They all had forgot about Christmas supper, until an hour later when the house was filled with smoke and Catelyn had realized that the pudding had been left in the oven. They had sat around eating burned food in the living room with their fingers, dazed and shaken and happy and mournful, talking into the small hours of the night, confessing to all of the things that have led to this moment—well, almost. They had learned how Jeyne reconnected with Ramsay at an alumni event, had been flattered by his interest in her, and how the ensuing months had sunk her into hell and she had become terrified.

Sansa had waited, in terror, for what they might say about her abortion, but no one brought it up—save for Mum and Dad, later, when everyone else had already gone to bed and they had come to her childhood room and hugged her one more time, and Mum had whispered, _we would have taken you_ , and sent her reeling with what might have been had she dared to break the peace. 

And yet—had things been different, easier, who would she be today?

This is what she thinks about now as she stares out at the untouched snow. It is an impossibly lonely thing, to sense that so very normal and so very different a world exists so near to this one; to sense that she is made up of circumstances both painful and flawed, to wonder if the art she creates is only as powerful as the pain she has endured. That cannot be right, she is sure of it. There must be some untouchable center to her that exists regardless of her circumstances, a core of her soul that has always loved stories and always will, a secret, hidden place from which an insatiable thirst for beauty and meaning will _always_ be born, regardless of the world around her. That part of her must exist. She cannot bear to credit her successes to her own mistakes, to Ramsay, to the pain of what was pushed into her under fluorescent lights and the grief of so many years, so many friendships, so many opportunities and chances torn away from her. She cannot bear to think that any beauty that she has created would not exist if not for this ugliness. 

And then she hears the scrape of the terrace door, and when she looks over her shoulder, Jon is there.

They have not spoken alone, yet, and now the enormity of what has transpired suffocates them both. Jon looks down, his lips quirking only slightly, in something sardonic and sweet. She _loves_ him.

"Thanks," he says casually, and it takes Sansa only a moment before she finds herself smiling too. 

"No problem," she cannot help but laugh, and she relishes the reluctant way his lips twist as he lets out the softest laugh through his teeth.

But he sobers so quickly, and she does as well. "Sit with me," she says after she turns back to look out at the stretch of starlight before them. She doesn't have the courage to do it when facing him, even after all that has happened tonight. Jon's unlaced boots scuff on the light dusting of snow as he joins her and sits beside her, and they stare out at the snow together. Her heart pounds. 

"Why'd you do it?" Jon asks at last. "Why'd you tell them everything? For Jeyne?" He is staring ahead, and she remembers driving in his truck together, with no music, no conversation, barely meeting each other's eyes. 

"That was why I came back in. I meant to pull her aside and tell her. But when I realized she was trying to use you to hide it," Sansa stammers, "I knew I had to do it then. I couldn't let them hate you for that. I still can't believe how quickly they turned on you, how they just assumed it was your fault." 

Her hands still shake as she recalls how it felt to walk into that room with her rapist, and how it felt to realize Jon was on trial for a crime he would never commit, against a jury of the people that he loved the most. 

"Well," Jon begins, shifting, "I don't think that came out of nowhere." 

She watches his breath cloud in the air as her own breath catches. "Anyone with eyes could see I loved you, back then." 

He says it quick, the words darting out swift as little birds across snow, and he has gutted her.

There are tears running down her cheeks. She blinks and the world turns briefly to pearl. "I think they all knew it," he continues, shaking his head. "They all knew, and tried to ignore it, but then I ran off with you and you never came back. And anyone who saw us tonight—"

It does not matter; it does not matter what they were thinking, or why they were hurt, or what they saw. None of it matters, because there is one thing that makes everything in her bloom and ache all at once. 

"You _loved_ me?"

She hates that she cannot find the courage to look at him. She hates how small, how needy her voice is. She hates how it shakes. She hates that she is crying.

...But she loves how it feels as though all of the bones in her chest are rearranging themselves, a throb between her ribs, a sudden squeeze of her heart that makes it hard to breathe and makes her think of a hazel-painted eye in a portrait or a snow-capped mountain or trees so covered with lichen that the air around them shimmers palest mint. 

"Yeah. For years. From when we were kids." His voice breaks. "I thought you knew." 

And then she looks at him, at his grey eyes and soft lips, at the paper moon scar over his brow, at the way he is looking at her like _that,_ like he's gutted by _someone he loves_ —

"I didn't." She covers her face with her hands, praying that her shoulders will stop trembling. 

"Well," she hears him begin, "look, tonight probably wasn't the right moment to tell you. But—"

"—Marg was right." 

This is her final secret. She says it quickly, just like he did, she realizes. "You are the hero in all of my books."

He does not speak, so she continues. "Every book I've written is my apology, and my love letter, to you."

"Apology? For what?" he scoffs, but there's a tension to his voice, a breathlessness. She feels drunk. 

"For leaving like I did that day. For trying to kiss you." The words tumble out. "I loved you. For years." 

She drops her hands at last, knowing she is being ridiculous. The secret is out, and the world is dizzyingly bright.

And she looks at him again, just as she realizes her shoulder is brushing his chest; he is turning to her, reaching for her. He pulls her close, and his forehead brushes hers, and then his nose brushes hers, and then she closes her eyes and can feel a flutter of eyelashes and a scrape of stubble, and then his lips slide against hers, and there can be no mistake. It is not the whispered maybe-kiss that was borne of fear and loss and things left unsaid, but something she has been fighting for, even if she did not know it. 

**Jon, 2019**

"Will you stay in my room tonight?" she whispers against his lips. There is a hook lodged in him, a hook that pulls out the _yes_ that he breathes. 

**Sansa, 2019**

In the bedroom where she and Jon once sat and made plans in secret, they lay together on her childhood bed, and Sansa giddily thinks, as the mattress creaks beneath them as they settle, that there will be more secrets revealed tomorrow. In the dark, they face each other, exhilarated and exhausted. 

There will be time later, for dates and seduction and kisses as deep and rich as wine, but for now, to fall asleep with his hand clasped in hers, his hand that feels like love, she dreamily remembers how it felt that day to feel herself splitting from the image she had always had of herself, like a ghost being ripped from a paper doll. And now, for just a moment, she feels her fingertips graze the porcelain skin of every Sansa Stark that she has written into her stories, the girl she will never be but always was, and when Jon sleepily kisses the inside of her wrist before drifting off, she feels the porcelain come to life, flesh and blood and flowers, and the moon in that fairytale world is the color of his eyes, and she knows they will live a thousand lives together.


	7. Epilogue

**Jon, 2021**

He is a liar. 

Jon hates lying to Sansa about anything, but this was necessary. There was no way to do it without a lie; he spent the better part of a month analyzing it and re-analyzing it, until Ygritte randomly rang him in the middle of the night one night and said, "I can HEAR you thinking from across Edinburgh, please just do it, you're not getting any younger, at this point it really doesn't matter how you do it," and then rang off. 

Ygritte is usually right about life matters, even if it annoys him that she is. Sam has also weighed in ("the thing is, Jon, we've all just survived a pandemic, and you've had so many opportunities to do it," he had pointed out cautiously over a pint) as well as Arya ("I swear to god, please just do it, or I'll stick you with the pointy end"). Even Catelyn, with whom his relationship is perennially strained, has sent not-so-subtle hints, such as offering to help him at the last Stark family gathering ("I know her taste, and if you ever needed a second opinion," she had informed him stiffly, walking away mid-thought and leaving him there alone, his mask fogging up his glasses). 

He's thought about it so much: what Sansa wants, what Sansa needs, what Sansa deserves. But Jon knows himself, too, and he knows what he thinks is right, and in the end, he didn't ask for anyone else's thoughts or opinions. He knows Sansa. He knows that she loves romance and magic (see: her entire written works), but that she hates a fuss (see: their entire history leading up to them finally getting together). He knows that she loves beauty, that she finds meaning in places where things are grown and loved. He knows that she is made of sunlight and has clawed and fought through dirt to bloom. 

He's got the perfect place all picked out, he's asked the employees to keep watch for about an hour; he's got the champagne in a cooler in his car. Sansa thinks he has been at work all morning, called in for an emergency, and she thinks they are meeting for an afternoon walk to de-stress. 

As far as he knows, she doesn't suspect a thing. 

**Arya: so when is it happening?**

**Jon: has to happen by 12:45, thats how long they said i could have it to myself. after that lunch is sort of done so they said theyll want the space back**

**Arya: ooh a deadline, that should help you**

**Arya: alright 12:45, good luck mate**

**Sansa, 2021**

Sansa stares at the dual pink lines. The second one is faint, but it is undoubtedly there. For one blinding moment, she is thrown back twelve years in time, to the bathroom at Winterfell: the curtains, the sound of other people having fun without her, the searing realization of her worst fears. Jon's shadow on the carpet, his soft eyes dismantling her, pulling her secrets from her like wires. Her hand shakes and she drops the test; in another lifetime she remembers dropping another pregnancy test, remembers Jon snatching it up, remembers Jon protecting her.

Pregnant.

"Fuck," she blurts out loud, in an uncharacteristic moment. Her voice echoes through their studio flat, the one which absolutely cannot hold an additional human, even a tiny one, even as her vision blurs with tears. On the sink, her mobile pulses with a text, and, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand, she snatches it. 

**Jon: think i'll be off soon**

**Jon: did you still want to meet at the botanical gardens**

**Jon: really could use a walk right now**

Her stomach is still churning. It feels impossible that they have plans today for something so mundane as a walk through some plants, when there is a life forming inside of her. She claps a hand over her mouth.

(How many years has she spent thinking of the child that is gone? How many years has she spent trying not to think of how it felt (however briefly) to be pregnant?)

She leaves the bathroom, wraps the pregnancy test in paper towels and hides it deep in the rubbish bin, before turning to look around the flat. Books, _her_ books, are stacked like skyscrapers throughout the flat, all books that she must sign this weekend at some point. Her latest book release was delayed, thanks to the pandemic, and she had been agonizing over not releasing the book on time, but now that it's been released, she has been procrastinating on signing the copies. She's felt off for weeks, irritable and weepy, bored and misty; and, lately, nauseated.

She looks around their perfect little jewel of a life, one in which she has taken her miseries and spun them into endless gold. It feels wrong, it feels unfair; it feels like a mistake. She feels like a villain in a fairytale who has stolen a baby.

She fixes her makeup, grabs her coat, and texts Jon back. 

**Sansa: sure, meet you there in a half hour?**

* * *

She reaches the botanical gardens with her eyes tearing slightly from the brisk wind. Her hair's a mess and she's pulled it into a ponytail and stuffed it under one of Jon's beanies. She knows she looks terrible, because her features always suffer in the cold or when she's been upset. And, she's been feeling fat (now she knows why) so she's wearing a large, roomy coat that she knows is not as flattering on her. And for some reason that notion makes her just as weepy as the test (don't think about it) (you don't deserve this) (what have you done) so by the time she sees Jon near their usual tree, she feels like a wreck. 

And he's perfect, as usual. He hasn't noticed her yet, and he's got his hands shoved in the pockets of his coat, leaning against the tree, scowling in thought. Probably obsessing about work, knowing him. It'll take him at least fifteen minutes to let go of whatever called him into the office, she knows; he will be a little terse, a little distant, and gradually he will thaw; he will wordlessly take her hand and she will feel his warmth. He is the engine, the anchor, behind everything she has ever written: he is the forest which she will approach, again and again, and lose herself in. 

(they have made a life)

(he has spun her pain into gold; he has loved her and now they have made a life)

Crap. She's crying again. Thank goodness for brisk winds and sunglasses. 

"Jon," she calls as she approaches, sliding her sunglasses on, and Jon startles. "Don't say anything about the beanie," she reprimands, horrified that her voice is thick and taut with the threat of tears, and she can tell Jon is baffled and wary of her obvious distress. "I'm having a fat day," she makes the first excuse that comes to mind.

He graciously does not question how a hat is related to feeling fat; he seems distracted, like there's a current running through him. "How was work?"

"Oh, um, fine," he says distractedly, as they fall into step together. They pass by one of the botanical gardens employees, who seems to peer at them; she is pretty sure Jon nodded at him. "All worked out," he adds unhelpfully. 

"Oh. Great," she says flatly. She thinks of the test hidden in the bin, and grabs Jon's hand, instead of waiting for him to come to her like she usually does. They're walking past her favorite glasshouse. Jon usually doesn't like going into the glasshouses (too crowded, too humid, too many screaming children) but to her surprise he steers her inside, after another odd encounter with another employee. Jon isn't social and doesn't nod or greet people unless forced to, but perhaps he is trying to make up for the angst she must be radiating.

(He is always so generous; he is always so adept at sensing what she needs and when... she is tearing up again, dammit.)

The glasshouse is empty, today, but rather than relax, Jon seems even more tense. Does he know? Does he suspect? And if he does, why is he so miserable? 

They walk past lilypads, they duck beneath enormous, umbrella-like ferns. Today the humidity of the glasshouse is cloying, the beanie is itchy but she feels too ugly to remove it, and Jon's distance is agony. She has lived a thousand and one lives with him in her head but never has any of these lives contained another one inside it. 

(It doesn't feel right. It feels selfish, it feels wasteful, gluttonous. No one can have everything; no happily-ever-after is virgin, unmarked, wholly intact. As a writer, she knows this; she knows there must be a petal turned brown on the rose, a thorn with a dot of blood.) 

(She cannot bear to think that the beauty she has created has only been possible due to her pain, but she senses it, is grateful for it, thanks it, and tries not to ask for anything beyond the gifts she already has.)

"Those are pretty," Jon ventures, pointing at some lilypads, and Sansa bites her lip before nodding. He makes another few stabs at conversation but they sound somehow aggressive, or is it just because she's more emotional? She blinks back more tears and when she blinks she sees the test in the rubbish bin again, outlined like daylight. It is agony not to tell him, but of course she must, but how can she possibly tell him? It feels like she will break some sort of spell, and then... 

(How many years did she spend trying not to think of the child that is gone?)

They circle the lilypads again; Sansa begins to move to lead them back outside, as they've seen everything there is to see in here, and besides, it's oddly empty (perhaps everyone is still too afraid to be in enclosed spaces with strangers, she thinks, though the bars have been doing _just fine_ ) but Jon keeps steering her back again, aggressively pointing out more plants, making stilted comments about how some plants can survive outside of a glasshouse, how some plants are hardier. He sounds a bit mad, truth be told.

"Jon, let's just go," she says, when he makes to loop them around the lilypads again, but he pulls her back. They stand on the path, him gripping her arms. "We've been in here for forever, it's hot, and I know you don't like—"

Her mobile goes off with Arya's special tone, and Jon blanches. "Hold on, let me—"

"No!" Jon's hand flies out and smacks over her own; she nearly drops her mobile into the lily pond. "Don't—"

"Congratulations?" Sansa blurts out, reading the first text. It's in all capital letters and accompanied by many emojis; the other texts are apparently GIFs. 

When she looks back at Jon, he is holding his breath. How can Arya possibly know? Has Arya been to their flat? Has Arya been—

"Goddammit," Jon sighs, pushing at his hair. He looks deeply hassled, and he drops her hand. "Must be 12:45." 

"It is," Sansa admits numbly, watching Jon sink down on one knee, shaking his head. 

"I had a thing," he begins, and she realizes her face is leaking again as he takes her hand. 

"A thing?" she asks thickly, feeling his thumb reflexively caress her knuckle. 

"Yeah, it was supposed to be romantic," he says irritably, "but Arya's gone and ruined it, and we're running out of time, anyway." He shoots a scowl at the door, and when Sansa glances over, she sees the employee from before standing there, pointing meaningfully at his watch. "Look, Sansa, to be quick about it—" the employee is knocking now, "—I wanted to ask you here, because—"

"—I'm pregnant," she bursts out in a sob, just as Jon is reaching into his pocket. 

They are both thrown backward in time this time; she can see it in his eyes. For one searing, piercing moment they are back in Winterfell, to that moment it all really began between them, when he covered for her, when he lied for her. _What do you need_ is all he had said, the single point of swivel between past and future. They are hurtling back in time, to the almost-kiss, to the shared blanket, to the years of distance. 

"Sansa," he finally utters, gripping her hand. All distance is gone. His silver-moon eyes are bright. She is acutely aware of time, of its undulating, unpredictable nature; like Jon her life has been a jumbled exploration of a forest of both treasured blooms and gnarled thorns, of things that awe her and things that scare her. This is yet another swivel point between them; this is yet another gate through which they shall pass, yet another book to be opened. 

And through the thick soil of dread, joy and hope bloom within her, a burst like an amaryllis. 

His grip tightens. There's another smart rap on the door to the glasshouse, a warning, and Jon swallows. "Marry me," he says softly. 

There is a hook lodged in her, placed there by him, a hook that pulls out the _yes_ that she breathes. 


End file.
